(ICU) by Allison Gregory, FronteraFest 2013 at Salvage Vanguard Theatre, January 22 - February 1, 2013

(ICU)

A Play by Allison Gregory
Directed by Steven Wilson
An odd comedy about love and duty that takes place in a coma.
Featuring Pamela Christian, Jesse Bertron, Erin Barlow, and W. Tucker

FronteraFest 2013 at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, 2803 Manor Rd.
Assistant Director: Amanda Koleckar
Stage Manager: Joe Heike
Costume Designer: Yao Chen
Sound Designer: Stephanie Busing

ICU is proudly presented as part of the 20th Annual FronteraFest. Four performances only:

Tuesday, January 22nd at 9p
Saturday, January 26th at 7:45p
Sunday, January 27th at 4p
Friday, February 1st at 9:45p

Tickets are $10. To purchase tickets and to view the entire FronteraFest schedule, visit www.hydeparktheatre.org.





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Mary Stuart, Austin Shakespeare at the Rollins Theatre, Long Center, February 11 - 28

Mary Stuart in Austin Shakespeare's staging at the Rollins Theatre provides a powerful, cathartic experience for the spectator. Schiller's drama gives us two sixteenth-century queens, each with a claim to the English throne, wrapped in tangled interests of state and church, trapped together like scorpions in a bottle and surrounded by plotters, counselors, and mendacity.

This Mary Stuart plays like Shakespeare, with actors in stylized Elizabethan garb moving in a long court laid between ranks of spectators. Director Ann Ciccolella assembled a cast worthy of the aim, none more so than Helen Merino as the imprisoned Mary Stuart and Pamela Christian as Elizabeth I. The confrontation between them in the mid-point of the action is epic, a careful duet of encounter, reason, flaring passion and, ultimately, disaster for the prisoner, disguised as triumph .

The images and intrigues suggest that Shakespeare could have written this text.

Except, of course, he could never have touched this subject. These events were hot, recent realities in Shakespeare's time. He wrote and performed his first plays five years or less after Mary Stuart's execution in 1587, which occurred the same year as the publication of Holinshed's Chronicles, a major source for his plays. Shakespeare flourished under Elizabeth's reign, but the second half of his career was under the reign of James I, the son of of Mary Stuart.

There's a lot of background and history in this piece, virtually all of which takes place off stage. Schiller is remarkably adept in giving you a sense of it, including the scandals and sins of Mary's youth, Catholic plots against Elizabeth the Protestant queen, the formal hearing and trial of Mary Stuart by 42 peers of the realm, the machinations and courting of Elizabeth by the French royal family, the conflicting advice to Elizabeth once Mary had been convicted, and Elizabeth's ambiguous instructions once she had signed the death warrant.

You could study all that. Or you could go with the action, which alternates between Mary in her prison and Elizabeth at the court, equally a prison.

Read more and view images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Images: Mary Stuart, Austin Shakespeare at the Rollins Theatre, Long Center, February 10 - 28

Click for ALT review, February 15

Received directly: photos by Kimberley Mead of Austin Shakespeare's Mary Stuart, playing until February 28 at the Rollins Theatre, Long Center.

The confrontation. Queen Elizabeth condescends to meet her imprisoned half-sister Mary Stuart, deposed queen of Scotland and unwilling inspiration for Catholic anti-Elizabethan plotters. (Pamela Christian, Helen Merino.)

In a brief, deceptive moment of liberation, Mary Stuart and her nurse Hanna Kennedy find themselves free to walk about the gardens of Castle Fotheringhay. (Helen Merino, Karen Jambon)






Lord Mortimer, plotter to free Mary by violence, seizes her in a fit of passion. (Sean Martin, behind Helen Merino.)




See additional images at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . .

Upcoming: Mary Stuart by Schiller, Austin Shakespeare at the Rollins Theatre, Long Center, February 11 - 28

Click for ALT review, February 15

UPDATE: Review by Clare Carnavan at Statesman A360 "Seeing Things" blog, February 11

UPDATE: Unsigned review at AustinOnStage, February 11

Received directly:







is the first company in the Southwest to stage the new adaptation of

Mary Stuart

a dramatic portrait of royal rivalry between
Mary, Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth of England

February 11 - 28 at the Rollins Theatre, Long Center
Tickets available now online or by telephone at (512) 474 - LONG

Now in its 25th anniversary season, Austin Shakespeare is proud to be the first theater in the Southwest to be awarded the rights to produce the new suspenseful adaptation of Schiller's Mary Stuart by British poet/playwright Peter Oswald, nominated in 2009 for 7 Tony Awards for the Broadway production.

Austin Shakespeare will transform the Long Center's Rollins Theater into a runway with audience on two sides, designed for a modern-day take on the Elizabethan era as they perform history’s illustrious high-stakes Tudor love triangle opening on Valentine’s Day weekend.

“This new version brings the clash between these charismatic women to life on the stage with language that is true to Schiller's emotional romantic play,” said Ann Ciccolella, artistic director of Austin Shakespeare. “The masterwork drives to reach a confrontation scene that never took place in history.”

The play is based on the story of Mary Stuart, the passionate and beautiful Queen of Scotland, as she struggles to gain freedom from her rival cousin, Elizabeth, the powerful Queen of England. Each woman uses the same man as lover and protector. Peter Oswald's new, energetic adaptation draws striking parallels to contemporary society.

As in the real-life story, Mary Queen of Scots has quite a resume. She murders her husband, marries his murderer, gets thrown out by the Scots as their Queen and conspires to bring about several murders. Schiller brilliantly condensed her story, beginning the action in the days before her execution.

[photo by Kimberley Mead]

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .